Drones, including unmanned flying devices, have numerous commercial applications, including use by retailers to deliver goods, which may decrease delivery costs associated with trucks and drivers, use by consumers to capture video and image data, including video of athletic and other events, and use by news agencies to capture data related to traffic and other events, and use by news agencies to capture data related to traffic and other news situations. However, drones also present concerns of dangers and other pitfalls.
For example, drones pose a risk of interfering with commercial and emergency aviation, such as circumstances in which drones are operating in or near flight paths. As another example, drones may cause a firefighting aircraft to abort its mission due to drones improperly flying too close to a forest fire. Drones can also be a danger to people and things on the ground. For example, a drone used to capture a skiing event narrowly missed a skier on the course when it crashed. Drones also threaten privacy invasion on a mass-consumer scale. For example, camera-equipped drones may capture video of people in otherwise private settings.
Today, both technological and legal factors restrict what safety mechanisms can be achieved and what drone and drone-operator behavior is allowed. For example, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires drones to operate within line-of-sight of the person controlling the drone. The FAA also requires registration of drones, presumably in part so that otherwise-anonymous drones can be traced back to their owners. This identification process only works if the misbehaving drone is captured. Otherwise, such as in the firefighting example, if the offending drone operators are unknown, enforcement of operator rules and institution of consequences for violating the operator rules may be impossible.
Thus, there is a need in the art for systems and methods that allow drones to be safely operated at scale, with secure command and control among legitimate stake holders, such as the drone operator, FAA, law enforcement, private property owners, and private citizens.